The Taste of Failure

The taste was still on my lips and in my mouth as I slowly made my way through the morning commute. It reminded me of my failure over the last few days. With nothing else to do with my brain I replayed the events leading up to that morning.

For more years than I can remember, it has been an interest — near obsession — of mine. I’m not sure why, but I know it began with wanting to make my own pizza as a child. Today, while I still yearn for that perfect home made pizza, my current goal is sour dough bread.

I’ve been baking breads for some years now. I would characterize the results as being successful. That is, of course, according to everyone else. The bread is eaten and never lasts long. The kids love the “salty bread” (baguettes) and soft pretzels. Whenever anybody brings bread to church its assumed I made it.

But for me, the elusive true sour dough bread has not come forth from my oven as yet. This week, I decided to try a new method based on a sour dough baking vlog I discovered from an actual chef. It looked promising and seemed to address the issues I felt I was having.

The problem with sour dough is that you don’t just mix up a recipe and pop it in the oven. It’s a more involved process. There are steps. And timing. It’s a formula of sorts. And yet there is a lot to it that is just intuition and experience. This seems to be the appeal for me. Baking bread, programming a computer, restoring a classic car. Sequences, steps, processes, methodology, puzzles and problems. These are things that get me going!

Everything seemed to be going well. The sour starter was bubbling as described. The sponge left overnight looked, well, spongy. After adding the deceptively simple ingredients of salt, sugar, oil and flour, I proceeded to knead. I could tell something didn’t seem quite right at this point, but it was coming along like it always does. I left the dough to rise all day.

When I got home, I could see the dough had indeed risen, but then fell slightly. I pulled out the dough, folded it, formed it into the baguette shapes and left it to rise a final time.

In the morning, it had not risen. I knew I had no choice at this point but to bake it and hope for the best. While baking it did expand a bit, like it is supposed to, but not enough. When it came out, it was hard and dense. I had just invented hardtack.

I was severely disappointed, because this was to be my lunch. I had already cooked a corned beef the night before. I had the sauerkraut I made last week. I had a plan! Yes, I am obsessed not just with bread but with the idea of making complex meals entirely from scratch. My other goal goes back to my childhood pizza experiments, and now consists of making mozzarella from scratch, as well as the sauce, and the crust.

I made the sandwich anyway. My son, an early riser, was excited. He passed on the bread after eating a few bites, but he didn’t recoil in horror. Honey Nut Cheerios just seemed a better fit. Then I tasted the bread. It was hard, and chewy, but not in the good way a baguette should be — lightly crunchy on the outside, with a soft smooth crumb on the inside. No, this was dense. But oh my! Was it sour! It was really sour. Over an hour later I could still taste the sour on my lips.

So, it was an epic fail. Or was it? My goal this time around was to finally get that sour dough flavor, and not just the “salty bread” flavor my kids seem to love. Well, I sure scored big time on the sour flavor! It was just too much and the bread texture was wrong. Its so sour I started thinking of ways I could dry out the bread and grind it to a powder and use it as sour flavoring in quick breads.

And there it was. A failure turned into a success of sorts, and the fruits of the failure repurposed for some future productive use. Maybe this weekend I will try again.